September 27, 2021
Good morning! The Information Technology Department at my work recently provided me with a brand new computer. It’s the first brand new computer I’ve had in more than 25 years — if you don’t count mobile phones. It’s a Lenovo #FOEU00; don’t know whether that’s good or bad, but so far it’s working fine. You’ll be the final judge of that.
An Early Fall Activity: To Pumpkin or Not to Pumpkin?
- Our anticipatory society needs a mid-September through mid-October universal focus not involving pumpkins.
- Suggestion: Apple pie baking contests
- People, if you carve your pumpkins in mid-September you’ll have nothing but a puddle of rotted goo on your porch come All Hallow’s Eve.
- It WILL come back, it will.
- Talking about grass, lawn grass.
- We suffered through a severe drought here in Central Minnesota for most of the summer; you could walk across many sections of the Mississippi.
- All grass, unless it was artificially irrigated, went dormant, some thought dead.
- Non-farmers and non-horticulturalists lamented, “my grass is dead, my grass is dead!” No, it’s just dormant, it will come back when/ if we have rain.
- It did rain, several inches, just when we thought it would never rain again.
- And the grass DID come back, it grew to more than a foot tall… as it vertically and verdantly greeted us upon our return.
- You don’t know the job until you DO the job… true of any job…
- A reader suggested I should try to FIND my roommate and estranged best friend from 50 years ago.
- Love to, but he has such a common name I haven’t been able to track him down. I’ll keep trying.
A Seminar on Leadership
- Forty-four years ago I was the unusually young beneficiary of a world-class experiencial seminar on leadership.
- This intense experience lasted ten days around-the-clock.
- We slept, but even in our sleep we were learning.
- I’ve tried over the years to practice what was taught, with no doubt many unintended and unforced failures.
- Among the more poignant points was a simple x-y graphic.
- The x axis represented getting the job done.
- The y axis represented keeping the group together.
- Managing the constant tension between the two imperatives theoretically resulted in splitting the hair and being hailed a perfect leader.
- You see, emotional intelligence, social skills, and many other modern trends related to healthier and happier people are nothing new.
- But, what is new is the increase in importance of keeping the group together.
- Getting the job done was always, perhaps secretly but well understood, the greater of two equals.
- And now, it would seem, Keeping the group together has become a TRUE equal if not now the greater of the two.
- Transformative? Yes.
- And, if you need a source better than I, look no further than Brower in Forbes, 2021
- “Empathy has always been a critical skill for leaders, but it is taking on a new level of meaning and priority. Far from a soft approach it can drive significant business results.
- You always knew demonstrating empathy is positive for people, but new research demonstrates its importance for everything from innovation to retention. Great leadership requires a fine mix of all kinds of skills to create the conditions for engagement, happiness and performance, and empathy tops the list of what leaders must get right.
- The reason empathy is so necessary is that people are experiencing multiple kinds of stress, and data suggests it is affected by the pandemic—and the ways our lives and our work have been turned upside down.”
- Is there a better contemporary storyteller than Ken Burns?
- I watched a minute or two of Muhammad Ali thinking I would shut it off and go to bed.
- Two hours later I still hadn’t moved from what had been a half-off-the-couch position.
- Agree or disagree? “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” (Spock)
- Courage is contagious — and so is cowardice.
- We live in an area where the topography, landscape, and cityscape result in moon rises and sun rises happening approximately 30 minutes later than the advertised time.
- In different parts of our city, where the horizon is flat, you get an early preview of what’s to come later to our yard.
- The rising of the harvest moon all of last week was spectacular.
- On one of the first nights a friend had watched the glorious unobstructed reveal in another part of town.
- She rushed to our neighborhood, headlights blinding me as she approached, to make sure I was enjoying the excitement.
- “Get in the car!” she said. So I did.
- We drove a circuitous route around town in a frenzy for about 20 minutes looking for the moon. Couldn’t find it.
- At each turn there were trees or buildings or police cars in the way… and by then I was dizzy.
- “Take me home, please.” And so she did.
- There as big and as beautiful as a moon ever gets was the September Harvest Moon visible right from our yard.
